AT&T, CenturyLink, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and other industry representatives separatelynspoke by phone with officials from the FCC’s Wireless and Wireline bureaus late last week and Mondaynabout the commission’s proposed changes to the Form 477 competition and broadband data collectionnprocess, the companies said in separate ex parte filings. Potential changes FCC officials outlined Fridaynwith AT&T included: changing the number of speed tiers, “providing the Commission "shape files" fornwireless services depicting the relevant technologies, frequency bands and maximum advertised speeds,”nproviding aggregated wireless device data that reflect the highest device speed capabilities, reporting nationalnmachine-to-machine wireless device counts and reporting data on wireless devices sold in a bundlenwith wireline services (http://bit.ly/WizboB). CenturyLink and FCC officials Thursday discussed “thenburdens of more granular reporting requirements, including how to make distinctions between servicesnthat are residential and those that are business, and potential submission of information on a confidentialnbasis,” said John Benedict, CenturyLink vice president-federal regulatory affairs (http://bit.ly/XyGlCG).nSprint committed during its call to FCC officials “to produce such data,” but said “the additional data andnchanges to the existing format of the data would increase the burden on carriers.” FCC officials also discussedncontinuing to provide the mapping information that carriers submit semi-annually to NTIA for itsnBroadband Map. Sprint representatives told the FCC “that it is time consuming to produce the maps. Wenagreed with staff that preparing a single nationwide map would be less time-consuming than the currentnstate-by-state mapping,” said Marybeth Banks, Sprint government affairs director (http://bit.ly/V4nBAu).nT-Mobile said Friday during its call “it agrees that a single process for providing broadband adoption andndeployment data on a nationwide basis likely would be preferable to the current FCC reporting that requiresncollecting data at the census tract level and having to file a separate report for each state.” FCC officialsnoutlined its proposed changes and noted “that carrier involvement in collaborating on beta tests is anpossibility,” said Indra Sehdev Chalk, T-Mobile principal corporate counsel-federal regulatory affairsn(http://bit.ly/VPPQmt). Industry representatives from NTCA, the Western Telecommunications Alliance,nAlpine Communications, Blackfoot Communications and Enhanced Telecommunications jointly spokenwith FCC officials Monday on the proposed Form 477 changes, NTCA Economist Richard Schadelbauernsaid Tuesday in a filing. The industry representatives said changing the rules to distinguish between residentialnand non-residential services “would likely double the overall data reporting burden,” Schadelbauernsaid. FCC officials told the representatives a proposed new tool that aids in geocoding could ease some ofntheir concerns (http://bit.ly/159r3vr).
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